It's National Chicken Wings Day!

Today has been deemed a "national holiday" although you probably never heard of it and since the banks and post offices aren't closed we can all go on living our lives, unlike Christmas when all you can do is go to church, a 7-11 or a Chinese restaurant, or Halloween when starting at four in the afternoon you have to answer your door constantly to dispense candy to kids dressed in polyester costumes from Walmart, or even worse, Walgreen's, and hardly anyone knows why anymore. 

Today is National Chicken Wings Day, which one celebrates by eating some. Not much of a holiday for vegetarians, or the for the poor chickens who had to die for the occasion. 

According to some, the holiday was born in 1977 in Buffalo, NY, with a proclamation by then-mayor Stan Makowski, one of many people believing Buffalo to be the birthplace of the recipe. 

According to other sources, the dish was invented in 1964 at the Anchor Bar, also in Buffalo, by Teressa Bellissimo, the bar's owner, going unheralded for 13 years. While Teressa and Stan duke it out over who first did what and when, historians say eating chicken wings is an ancient practice that originated in the Mediterranean region around the 5th century BC and prepared by people determined to make use of all parts of the chicken.

I'm going with the Mediterranean story since A, historians are usually very smart folks (although maybe not the ones studying chicken wings), and B, that Buffalo sauce is just too orange and tastes like radiator fluid. One thing I know for sure is that the best ones in the Portland area are available at Binga's Wingas, with several locations. But don't go today as it's likely to be crowded with drunken revelers smeared in orange sauce.